


This Love That I Most Fear

by hoboshorts



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abuse, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love at First Sight, Misogyny, Rape, Recovery, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:12:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3444971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoboshorts/pseuds/hoboshorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An aside from the canon of The Demands of Good Men.</p>
<p>How did Inquisitor Trevelyan get that scar?</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Love That I Most Fear

**Author's Note:**

> I got asked about headcanons on tumblr and started typing this. You know, when I should be working on the next chapter of Demands. Derp.
> 
> I would say the triggers for rape/non-con and violence are mild, the worst of it is implied rather than written out explicitly. Still proceed with caution. Also you don't have to read this to understand ANYTHING in Demands, this is completely aside, self-indulgent un-beta'd poop. :P

There’s a slight scorch on the sleeve of her robes from the wax seal that has since cooled over the envelope. Beatrix’s words and hopes are pressed into the parchment, ink swirls of romance and desire scratched across the page. She struggled to control her breath as she ascended the steps to the Templars’ quarters, a place no mage of the Circle dared to enter.

 

Ser Roderic was a great deal older than her, dark hair silvered dashingly. He had come to her family’s estate when her magic showed when she was only ten and two. She was too terrified to speak or eat or move, but he understood this reaction. He smiled and gave his hand to her, helped her up onto the horse and walked alongside her. He talked about the tower and the people there and slowly, bit by bit, she found her voice again. By the time they reached the Ostwick Circle she was laughing merrily, eyes bright with mirth.

 

Four years passed thusly and she bloomed from the skinny little nothing into womanhood. Ser Roderic was a fixture in her life in the Circle. The man often asked after her, politely and unobtrusively, and she would always be happy to giddily answer his inquiries into her studies.

 

In those four years Beatrix had not only gotten a fuller bosom and curvier hips, but also had become an accomplished mage. While many in the Circle sneered at first at the noble brought into their midst, she proved herself more than worthy of the title of Enchanter, gained at the astonishing age of fifteen. She delighted in tutoring the young apprentices and sharing her knowledge with them.

 

Thus she felt it was time to make her confession to Roderic. She felt that if not for his kindness she would not have been so earnest in her studies, so happy with her life in confinement. He was beautiful and she loved him deeply, madly. Madly enough she would risk being made Tranquil if only to let her feelings be known to him. So many other girls—mages and Templars alike— fancied him, but had not dared approach for the fear of strict punishments. She would not be so easily deterred from her goal.

 

The Trevelyan motto was, after all— ‘Modest in temper, bold in deed.’

 

Footsteps on the cobblestones. Beatrix ducked behind a pillar, glad that the boring slate of her robes made her nearly invisible against the masonry. Her heart stopped as she peeked around the edge of her hiding place—she could clearly see into the Templars’ common area and there was Roderic with two of his fellows, shucking their shields and swords, racking their armor.

 

“That Trevelyan girl was looking at you again, Roderic,” one said with a chortle that made Beatrix’s cheeks burn hot in indignation.

 

“Ahahaha, yes, I know,” Roderic said with an easy smile that gave Beatrix some comfort, up until it was followed with a cruel, “Like a mabari after a bone, isn’t she? And here I thought nobility would have a little more grace. Ah, it won’t matter after…”

 

“After what?” the other Templar, a bearded man—not Chortles— asked.

 

“After they brand her, of course…” Roderic declared simply. Beatrix swallowed her gasp, unable to believe what she clearly heard. Nor what followed—“It’s only a matter of time before she makes some idiotic confession, just like Linette and Abigail before her…”

 

Linette and Abigail… They were two of the many Tranquil that wandered the tower, doing menial labor. They were both pretty girls, younger than Roderic like herself…

 

“And then she’ll be mine. You know Tranquil—they can’t say ‘no’ and they can’t tattle,” Roderic stated with authority, “Much easier than bedding a mage who might wag their tongue the second the Libertarians get their ear…”

 

“Hahaha, you’re mental!” Chortles said, but didn’t seem too opposed to the idea.

 

“Seriously? They don’t… you know… tell the First Enchanter or the Knight-Commander or anything?” Beardy asked.

 

“Why do you think I bother being all nice with all those little slips of girls we get from the arse-end of the Free Marches?” Roderic scolded, “You get cozy with them, tell them they look pretty and they’re falling all over themselves to prove their ‘love’… then you tell the Knight-Commander of it and that’s that. You know how the Knight-Commander wets himself at the thought of demons, especially ones of Desire…”

 

“Huh,” Beardy said, “Maybe I ought to give it a go…?”

 

“Ha, it’ll be good to have a third, anyways,” Roderic said, “Gets a little boring, alternating night after night…”

 

Beatrix has heard enough. She fled from the Templar halls, downstairs into the enchanters’ quarters. She flung herself into her room and threw the letter away from herself like it was a poisonous snake. Then she vomited into the chamber pot, over and over again until she was just a throbbing nerve of pain and emptiness.

 

Slowly, bit by bit, her sobbing stopped. Beatrix wiped the bile from under her lip and stared at her mussed image in the mirror across from where she was knelt on the floor in her sad grey robes.

 

This would not stand. This was more than just dashed hopes. _This_ was the evil the Chantry preached about.

 

She slept fitfully that night, not able to be bothered to change into her bedclothes. She woke late and when one of the other enchanters called upon her, she cited that she was feeling ill and they let her be.

 

Beatrix made her decision quickly about what to do. The sorrow was replaced with a fury that gave her renewed vigor. She threw her ruined robes aside and bound her hair up, cleaning herself up with pitcher and washcloth. Dressing in robes of black, reserved for somber occasions, Beatrix strode out of her rooms—resolved to bring the abuses to an end, no matter what.

 

“Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter,” she recited to herself as she penned the letters, “Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just…”

 

It was far too easy to slide the envelopes onto the desks of the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter.

 

The next part was a bit harder. She had to watch Roderic. While normally this was a fun activity of hers, the very sight of the man sickened her so much that she was glad she skipped her meals today.

 

Her careful watch paid off when that evening she witnessed him pull Linette by the arm upstairs to his room. It was quite a bit earlier than she’d expected, which worried her.

 

“Ser Roderic…” Linette dispassionately said, “Is there something you require?”

 

“Shut up, slut,” he muttered impatiently before he roughly threw the Tranquil onto his bed. She winced in reaction, but did not shout or scream. Roderic chuckled as he undid his belt and got on top of her. “I’m giving you what you wanted, so be happy.”

 

_Where are they?_ Beatrix fretted as her stomach churned. She looked at the clock on the wall—her letter had outlined the matter thoroughly, but what if the Knight-Commander and First Enchanter thought it a prank? _Oh no…_

 

Linette’s robes are being ripped open, breasts bared, Roderic’s zipper opened now…

 

_Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's will is written._

 

“Stop!” Beatrix yelled loudly and gestured with a hand—magic forcing Roderic apart from the pliant woman.

 

Roderic grunted as his body was thrown into the bookshelf with an audible crack. Beatrix runs over to Linette, apologies for not intervening sooner on her lips—

 

“You little _bitch!_ You need to learn to wait your turn!”

 

Roderic’s got her by her hair and Beatrix struck back with an errant shot of frost that missed Roderic by several inches but forced him to let go in order to dodge it. She tried to scramble back up onto her feet but Roderic backhanded her, the edge of a ring—ironically emblazoned with the Sword of Hessarian—cut her eye. The blood blinded her as she scrambled backwards, kicked out at him, fire formed at her fingertips dissipated with a gesture from him…

 

And then it was over—Roderic tossed backwards by a blast of far more powerful magic than she possessed. The door was open behind her, Knight-Commander Nelson and First Enchanter Cynthia standing there—the latter with her hand outstretched. Nelson shook his head at the scene, sword at the ready.

 

“I had hoped this wasn’t true, Roderic…” Nelson said, “How dare you sully our Order with your petty lust?”

 

“The _Order_?” Cynthia cried out, irritated as she helped Beatrix to her feet. “What about these women? Where is your outrage for them?”

 

Nelson glowered at Cynthia. “Trust me, my outrage for them will be well-known, First Enchanter.”

 

“It wasn’t me!” Roderic cried out, “The mages—they manipulated me! Yes, it was demons—”

 

“The only demon I see here is _you_ , Roderic,” Beatrix said as she cupped her heavily bleeding face. She hurried from Cynthia’s arms to Linette, who was sitting up but had not closed her robe. Beatrix plucked the buttons closed for her with blood-slippery hands as the Knight-Commander clapped irons on Roderic. He was to be banished to the dungeons deep below the Tower. Without lyrium it would be a matter of weeks before madness set in and he would _beg_ for the sweet succor of death.

 

Beatrix was shaking with the pain splitting through her head, but was trying to keep from tears. She jumped nearly out of her skin when Linette’s hand lit upon hers and when she looked up at the woman, Linette was the one crying. It wasn’t like anyone else Beatrix had seen cry, no wailing expression or pinched brow or reddened face.

 

Tears slipped noiselessly down the Tranquil’s face, one after another as the woman blinked them away.

 

“Thank you, Enchanter Trevelyan,” Linette said.

 

Both of them were brought to the infirmary to be seen after. First Enchanter Cynthia made to heal Beatrix’s wound but Beatrix brushed her aside with a shake of her head.

 

“No. I want to keep it,” she said, “As a reminder.”

 

It worked well, too. The next time she saw Beardy and Chortles, all Beatrix had to do was _glare_ , wrinkling up that gnarled scar that ran from her eyebrow to her lower lid—and they fled, not wanting to suffer the same fate as Roderic had.

 

=-=-=-=-=-=

Five years later the sky is torn apart and Beatrix’s life changes from being the ‘Evil Eye of Ostwick’ to the ‘Herald of Andraste’.

=-=-=-=-=-=

 

The man before her leans over a multitude of maps. He’s wearing heavy furs and that combined with the golden halo of wavy blond hair makes Beatrix think of a lion so suddenly and immediately she has to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the very sight of him.

 

“…this is Cullen,” Leliana introduces, “Knight-Captain of Kirkwall’s Chantry and now commander of the Inquisition’s forces…”

 

“Former Knight-Captain,” the man, Cullen, says gruffly with his eyes still on the map, “And ‘forces’ is a little misleading with our current conscripts being hardly old enough to grow a beard let alone—”

 

Cullen looks up and their eyes meet. Neither of them are laughing. Beatrix’s breath is stolen from her in a way that hasn’t happened since she was a girl ducking around corners in the Tower, giddily following a man who turned out to be a monster. _My commander is a Templar, oh… oh no… stop that Beatrix, just because he is handsome he’s like Roderic? You’ve known good Templars, you have… you just… never trusted any of them after that and now you’re expected to… oh **no** …_

 

“Oh-!” Cullen stands at attention sharply when he realizes who he’s speaking to and ends up banging his knee spectacularly on the war table. “ _Bloody hell!_ ”

 

The big blond jumps in pain and there goes the candle. Now there’s a small fire that he’s trying to put out before the maps end up burning away. “Herald! I wasn’t informed you were well enough to be about yet—not that that’s a problem, you being about, I mean—that is—I’m _glad_ you’re about and not… well… _unable_ to be about…”

 

Cullen finally claps out the last bits of flame with his gloves. The Hinterlands are now a big charred mess surrounded by blobs of cooling candle wax. Cullen grimaces and pinches the bridge of his nose, his face and cheeks ruddy with embarrassment.

 

“Sister Leliana didn’t inform me you would be coming today,” Cullen says, “I am not… I am sorry for how ill-prepared I am. And for cursing. And for setting the room on fire…” His shoulders slump. “I don’t suppose you ladies would be willing to re-enter the room and pretend the last few minutes didn’t happen?”

 

Beatrix can’t help it. She _laughs_. Laughs like she hasn’t had reason to in days, since her hand started glowing and she became this figurehead she never wanted to be.

 

Leliana seems to approve even as Cullen reddens further. Beatrix wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes and manages to speak a moment later…

 

“At ease, commander,” she says and offers her hand. He takes it, his hand huge in comparison, encompassing and warm. “But none of this ‘Herald’ nonsense, please. Call me Beatrix.”

 

Cullen smiles and she notices the scar that slashes through the corner of his mouth, the coarse stubble around his soft-looking lips…

 

“Beatrix,” he repeats, “Cullen. It’s a pleasure, my lady.”

 

She loves and hates how her heart flutters when he presses those lips to her hand.

 

_Please Maker…_ she thinks to herself as Cullen lets her hand go and holds the door for both Leliana and herself. Cullen brings her to examine the… _their_ troops. The blond man, at least nine years her senior if not more, smiles as he speaks— proud of his recruits like a father with children, speaking sternly but softly…

 

_Please let him be good. Let him be kind._

_Let him be **safe**._


End file.
